Writer Jeanette Winterson has proved that she is in a very modern
relationship, by making a Valentine's Day proposal to her lover on Twitter.

The Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit author, famous for her turbulent lesbian affairs, asked partner Susie Orbach to marry her.

The 53-year-old, who has over 20,000 followers, tweeted: “VALENTINE'S DAY. Sun shining. Susie Orbach will you marry me? x (well, marriage is a public declaration isn't it?)”

Dr Orbach, Princess Diana’s former psychotherapist, has not publicly responded to the proposal. They have been in a relationship since the spring of 2009.

It is believed that the couple live separately as Winterson has in the past discussed her inability to live with someone. Dr Orbach has two children with Joseph Schwartz, who she was in a relationship with for more than 30 years.

At around the same time as the proposal was tweeted she wrote on the social networking site: “Alive love means seeing who the other is now, not just who they were for you. Getting to know their longings today makes for sparkle & xxx.”

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Winterson, who is famously open about her sexuality, describes her lover, a psychotherapist and writer, as a “post-heterosexual ".

Winterson has had a chequered love life since she was thrown out of the home of her adopted parents for having an affair with a woman at 16.

At 24 her most famous novel had transformed her into a celebrity “lesbian” author, but she prompted anger when she had an affair with Julian Barnes’s wife, the literary agent Pat Kavanagh in the 80s.

In 2010 she admitted that she considered suicide after her six-year affair with theatre director Deborah Warner ended in 2007.

After sleeping with a string of men she met Dr Orbach, who wrote Fat Is a Feminist Issue after she was asked to interview her for The Times. She couldn't do the interview, but Orbach invited her for supper instead.

The author told The Guardian in a 2010 interview that she was smitten from the start, but initially did not think she would have a chance.

“I'm in love and I don't care who knows it," she said. "Susie calls herself post-heterosexual. I like that description because I like the idea of people being fluid in their sexuality. I don't for instance consider myself to be a lesbian. I want to be beyond those descriptive constraints."